Labor Day!

I decided that I needed to get a post out about what we did over labor day while the memory was still fresh. Teasing about upcoming posts is just a bonus.

Over labor day we went up to my mother's lake house on the lake of the Ozarks. This house was owned by my grandparents before her and it's a place I've been going to since i was a small child. I'm happy to have had the chance to share it with not only her but also her mother and brother.

We headed up to Tulsa on Friday evening, spent the night, and then left for Missouri the day after. It's a 5 hour drive to get there plus a bit of time stopped for groceries and gas and such along the way. We arrived in the late afternoon to the humid heat characteristic of places near water and set about cooling down the house from sitting unused with the thermostat up since the last visit my mom had made several weeks earlier.

After all the unpacking finished it was time to prepare dinner. We made a pretty typical labor day weekend menu of hamburgers and sausages with corn on the cob. It was rather enjoyable. The next few days followed a simple pattern of waking up whenever we felt like it, playing games, cooking, some light baking, and enjoying the company.

As usual, Karen cleaned up at Ticket to Ride, winning every game we played. There was also a very tense game of Forbidden Island that we somehow managed to win with 6 or 7 of the initial locations remaining. One or two games of munchkin were played as well, being one of our favorites.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, though Karen's brother experienced an acute lack of internet, given that the remoteness of the lake house prevented stable cellular connection. Personally I have grown to enjoy that fact much more than i would have in earlier years. I imagine the prevalence of handheld video games to fill evening board game gaps has something to do with it though.

I doubt we'll get back up there again this year for much more than cleaning, winterizing, and storing the boat. Those tasks are a small price to pay for all the enjoyment we get out of vacationing up there. The only downside at all is that i constantly want to invite all of my lovely internet friends to join me but they are too scattered to make that a viable reality. Perhaps at some point I will be able to organize a grand gathering. Until then, I'll just have to enjoy it with family.

-R

Dominion: Seaside

Dominion Seaside is an expansion of Dominion, which means you need the base cards from one of the stand alone games.  Or you can get a set of just the base cards.  Apparently that's a thing now.  We scavenged the base cards from Intrigue.

We had two players for our maiden voyage.  (Get it?  Because it's nautically themed!)  One of the things I like about Dominion games is the suggested sets for a well rounded game.  This is super helpful when you're not familiar with the cards of a new expansion.  We played the High Seas set.  There were a couple of cards with interesting mechanics.  The Pirate Ship was a little aggressive and allowed a player to either collect gold tokens or use the gold tokens she'd already acquired as money.  The Smuggler helped us build up our decks really fast.  The game changer, though, was Embargo.  This card let the player put an embargo on a stack of cards, which results in a player gaining a curse card whenever the player bought a card from that stack.  Put an embargo on the province cards, and all of a sudden your 8 coins buy effectively 5 victory points instead of 6.  Put an embargo on the duchy cards, and the victory points drop from 3 to 2.  

All set up and ready to go!  Oh wait, where are the curse cards?

We only had two embargos: one on provinces, one on duchies.  This was very effective to get people to stop buying duchies, but not so much with the provinces.  Embargoes can stack, causing a buyer to take two, three, four, or however many curse cards are required.  In a game with more people, the provinces could easily get embargoed to the point where a purchase is just not worth it anymore.

This was a really close game.  We both had the same number of province cards and estate cards (after canceling out curses), but I was behind by just one duchy!  Oh well, maybe next time...

Pandemic and Tsuro

This weekend we had a total of five people for game night, and we played Pandemic and Tsuro.

Normally, Pandemic is a four player game, but we had the expansion, On The Brink, which allows for a fifth player.  Pandemic is quite possibly my most favoritest game ever.  If you are not familiar with Pandemic, there is an *excellent* youtube video you should watch:

In fact, all the TableTop videos are awesome, you should watch them all, like them all, and subscribe to  Geek and Sundry.  

The expansion really should be called "New and More Interesting Ways to Die"

On The Brink is neat because it's kind of like three expansions in one.  You can choose to play with a virulent strain, bioterrorist, or mutation.  So far the only one we've tried is virulent strain, in which one of the diseases becomes virulent, meaning that each epidemic card introduces a new effect related to one color.  Last night, this was the yellow fever.  So there we were, with one disease left to cure, when the final epidemic of the game hit, produced multiple outbreaks, and everyone died a horrible death.  Fin.

After a short break, we recovered our wits, and played Tsuro.

Roar!  I'm a dragon!

In Tsuro, you are a dragon flying along a path.  You build your path tile by tile, but watch out!  If your path leads you to another dragon or off the board, you're out of the game.  Last man standing, or last dragon afloat, wins the game.  It's short, it's straightforward, and can have up to eight players.  It's also a good way to mentally recover from Pandemic.

Whee! Flying dragons!

Battlestar Galactica

Game night!  

First, some Smash Bros. to get things going.

Then, chicken nachos!  No recipe here - just chopped stuff and cheese on top of chips.  Also, no picture.  Sorry!  You know what chicken nachos look like, and if you need a reminder, go make some!  

At last, Battlestar Galactica!  

See that hand?  That's the hand of a cylon!

No television show experience required.  We had 5 players, which is the perfect number according to boardgamegeek.com.  

Premise:  

You and your fellow players are trying to get across space in a series of jumps.  Why?  Because there are evil robots called cylons trying to kill you!  They are also super sneaky and have cylons that look exactly like people, and they have infiltrated your group.  At least one of you is one of these super sneaky cylons and is subtly working against you.  There is only one way to win: to reach your destination.  There are many ways to lose.  At least if you're human.  Flip that if you're the cylon.  

Things I like:

It's cooperative - yay teamwork!

It's sneaky - secret roles are awesome.  

There is a lot of player interaction.

There are many opportunities to make "pew pew" shooting noises! Pew pew pew!

Also, it's about 3 hours long and fairly complicated - just so you know what you're getting into.

Wrap up:

The humans were doing very well for most of the game.  We were ONE JUMP away from winning when the 2nd cylon revealed himself and damaged the ship beyond repair, ending the game.  Cylons: 1, Humans: dead.  

PS:

Astute readers will notice that this game is not in our game library.  Thanks for sharing your game with us, Alan!